Jena Graduate School "Human Behaviour in Social and Economic Change"

The general objectives of the Jena Graduate School "Human Behaviour in Social and Economic Change" are education to excellence and the stimulation of outstanding research by providing a framework for doctoral programmes in the social sciences with common standards at a top-quality international level. Programmes of each of the participating disciplines are opened, and interdisciplinarity is further strengthened by a new and unique study and research programme.

Common Research Fields and Research Priorities
Processes of change form the context for innovative human behaviour and adaptive or conservative reactions to changing social and economic environments. Here, the five disciplines involved in GSBC most fruitfully intersect and provide for complementary conceptual and methodological tools. GSBC encompasses four interdisciplinary research fields, each specific but all together interrelated:

1. Responses to accelerated change
2. Innovation as intended change
3. Changing social and economic contexts and changing identities
4. Change across the lifespan

The first two fields approach societal and economic change as unintended and intended results of human behaviour on a macro-level. Both benefit from including behavioural aspects for further differentiation and clarification. The other two fields focus primarily on the individual. Their perspectives are then broadened by including meso-level and macro-level processes and their consequences for individual agents and social systems. Insights in mutual relations among different levels of analysis are of immense scientific and societal relevance and can be gained only in an extended interdisciplinary endeavour comprising the five disciplines in the GSBC.

Scientific key words
Social and economic change, interdisciplinary research

Participating Faculties
Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business Administration, Law

Cooperation partner
Max-Weber-Kolleg (University of Erfurt), Institute of Political Science (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg), International Max Planck Research School on Adapting Behavior in a Fundamentally Uncertain World

Preferred language
English

Current number of doctoral candidates
9 internal (+60 including all subprogrammes)

How can I become a doctoral candidate? What is the method of selection?
All applications are reviewed by the assessment committee. Promising candidates are invited to a personal interview. Each candidate is interviewed individually. The interview may consist of a short presentation by the applicant and a question-and-answer session. The presentation may focus either on the candidate's past academic work (e.g., diploma or master thesis), or on the planned dissertation project.
We expect applicants to indicate with whom of faculty members of the GSBC they plan to cooperate, how their previous expertise relates to their future research focus, and which specific interdisciplinary research questions they want to address in their work. For further information, please visit our homepage en.

Are there fixed dates to apply?
No

Are there possibilities to be funded in this programme?
Currently, we only review applications that can secure their funding from external sources.

Interesting for graduates of the following subjects:
Applied Ethics, Economics, Law, Psychology, Sociology and related disciplines

Degree
Dr. rer. pol. or Ph.D. (Economics), Dr. phil. (Psychology/Sociology/Ethics), Dr. jur. (LAW)

Contact
Jena Graduate School GSBC
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Carl-Zeiss-Straße 3
07743 Jena, Germany
Phone: +49(0)3641-943 272
Fax: +49(0)3641-943202
E-Mail: jenagraduate@uni-jena.de
Internet: http://www.gsbc.uni-jena.de en
Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Uwe Cantner